Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.

That's a "Holly" hydrant, named for inventor Birdsill Holly, who patented it in 1869. The weird cap is apparently the interface for opening the flow valve. Pics that I've found often have a chain running through the slots in the cap and anchored at the two hose interfaces, which I suppose would prevent vandals from idly turning the cap and charging the hydrant with pressure.

I moved to Indianapolis a few years ago, and one of the interesting things about the downtown area is the abundance of those pedestrian skywalks. They're all over the place. There are long ones across the main streets, and short ones tucked away in numerous alleys like the one already posted. Even the University just to the north of downtown has a large number of skywalks.

West Pearl at Meridian has been obliterated by an office building (below), with only some bollards to show that a street existed. But East Pearl is still there (bottom), with another one of those curious covered walkways.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.